There's tons of mysteries in life and I have wondered my entire life, what our purpose in life is?

Lately, I've been examining my own life and trying to see things in a different way. I've been fortunate enough to be able to live comfortably, have food and shelter. The more I think about what I have, the more I realize how grateful I am to have things that I want. I'm also starting to realize that life doesn't just revolve around my needs.

I started thinking about how I can affect people either positively or negatively. It brings me back and reminded me of the book that I've read a while back called, "the 5 people you meet in heaven". It's a life changing book and if you haven't read it, it's definitely worth the time. The book is about a tragic and how Eddie (the main character) goes in the afterlife and meets 5 people that he have met or were somehow connected to him in his lifetime. Every single individual that he has affected in his life shares a story with him. With each story, he realizes what the purpose of his life was.

Regardless if afterlife is real or not, I think that there's some key takeaways and lessons from the book. Most of us go through life fulfilling our personal needs, establishing our career, to have family and be successful. While they're all great, and not to say that having a set of achivements is bad either. At the end of it all, once you have achieved your goals in life, is that it? Is that what life is about? Is that all that matters?

Ultimately, the things that I do in every waking life -- how I affect others through my actions, not only serving my own needs but others' needs, sharing with others and making an impact in other people's lives is what gives me the greatest gratification. The more I try to understand and educate myself about life (spiritually), I feel that I'm getting closer to finding out my purpose in life.

My take is, each of us has been blessed with talents and it is our responsibility is to find what that is and share those talents with others. I'm blessed to have my problem solving ability, easily understand technology and programming concepts. My goal from here on out is to "give" as much as I do "receive". Giving back even just by being a mentor to young people, teach and to inspire others, share insights gives me satisfaction. Being able to affect others in terms of helping them get past a psychological barrier or simply providing them a direction on their career is well enough (in my opinion) to provide value to others.